BigNorseWolf's page

That reason works fine. Just have Parani be the one who wrote the report, which is largely true.

I think V is the only member of the OoTS that's aware of the lost eye first hand, and he likely communicated that fact to the oethers.

But why would V, who believes in the power of magic, Expect Redcloak not to regenerate his own eye?

A question a co-worker asked:

** spoiler omitted **

Why do you think they

Also, the movie did a nice job of remembering the technological innovations of the first film and incorporating them into the plot, rather than say suddenly forgetting they already had superpowered future tech.. or.. well.. even more future future tech from the future of the future.

You're right, its the talk of min-maxing I find tedious beyond words.

Its a thread about character optimization, what did you expect? If you have religious objections to baseball you don't walk into a baseball stadium.

As you say, one stat is as good as another, after all.

I have clearly, repeatedly, and unabashedly been saying quite the opposite.

So it's okay if a few "hadjis" die, but not if the victims are US citizens?

What'd you call that?

Tribalism.

See if you've put 1 in the number of sessions way down on the bottom of the page.

bugleyman wrote:

You want scandal? How about this?.

Because nothing says "freedom" quite like a government covertly assassinating its own citizens.

Because nothing says "freedom" quite like a government covertly assassinating people.

Fixed that for you. Saying anything else is hypocrisy.

Not really. A nation is by definition admitting to its tribalism, people on the inside get treated one way and people on the outside get treated another.

LazarX wrote:

It's an alignment infraction no matter what if you're good-aligned.

The Guide explicitly states that an action specifically ordered by a Faction head does not count as an alignment infraction.

*except for paladins

Nope. Paladins are bound by a higher authority than a faction mission. They will still need to decide whether completing the faction mission is worth an atonement. -Mike Brock

Rory wrote:

I encountered a Silver Crusade faction mission where a paladin group ordered me to remove corrupt thugs from the streets "at all costs". ...

And technically, if torture is evil and against the PFS rules, then faction missions should never require torture and/or murder. It can't be both ways.

Was that mission an actual Silver Crusade mission or one from an early season where you got the Andoran faction mission instead?

Sorry to say, it is both ways. That is why the Alignment Infraction paragraph was modified as mentioned above. So characters can complete their faction missions without turning evil.

And this is the quandary I was pointing to earlier.

It seems rather odd that torture is somehow different than all the eviler stuff that pathfinders get a pass on, or are directly told to do on a daily basis.

The thing with murder (and with some of the definitions of torture) is that they're legal definitions. They go on the law/chaos axis, not the good/evil axis.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Dammit.. now what do i do for an excuse?

What do you mean?

I mean my excuse for not doing any good. I mean before i was condemned to hell either way...

Dammit.. now what do i do for an excuse?

Everyone seems to be ignoring the second question in the original post. Exactly where is the line between "intimidation" and "torture"?

Hit point damage? (whether real or subdual)

Wouldn't weird seasons be more of an erratic tilt than an erratic orbit?

This assumes that the gaming community can not and will not discuss matters like mature adults...EVER.

Assumes, Concludes, its a foggy line....

Now your group LOCALLY may not be able to do this...right NOW. But see, kids grow up eventually...even the 30 year old ones.

NEVER!

So yes, talking works. It works very well.

I think you may be underestimating the extent to which charisma was dump stated... and i don't mean for the characters.

There's also the problem that David is trying to take his subjective preference for a certain amount of build power and wield it like objective fact. That simply doesn't work. Telling someone that their character is overpowered has no weight to it because overpowered exists entirely in someone else's brain... why should anyone trust someone elses brain over their own? (especially in this crowd. We r smrt, and trust our own brains over other people's.)

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Fromper wrote:

Everyone seems to be ignoring the second question in the original post. Exactly where is the line between "intimidation" and "torture"?

Yes torture is evil.

Intimidation is when you threaten to do physical harm that would cause maiming, injury, etc...

Torture is when you deliberatly cause pain and suffering to an individual and they are unable to defend themselves.

So let me get this strait.

The pathfinders have some vague information that a place is involved in smuggling that might be related to a kidnapping. (as if skyreach weren't the number two source of smuggled artifacts in the inner sea) A heavily armed and armored swat team of pathfinders kick in the door and find mook thug number 2, who oddly enough at seeing people apparently about to kill him, picks up a knife to defend himself.

This person can be shot with an arrow, decapitated with a sword , turned into a marmoset, have his blood boiled within his own veins, be bathed in acid, or even set on fire and be left to burn to death alive... and THEN have his body reanimated into an unholy mockery of life that exists to satiate an inexorable hunger for the tender flesh of the living and thats not an evil act.

But if you take someone you know is guilty of the most heinous crimes, who deserves to be decapitated on the spot, and instead smack him around a little for information then suddenly you've crossed the line...

Ok, so just to be clear, you can purchase any magic item as long you have the fame and gold for it? It doesn't have to be listed on a previous chronicle sheet?

Yes. Chronicle sheets are 99.44% useless for buying things (but they're getting better)

I had always thought you were not only limited by your fame level, but you needed to have picked it up as an option to buy on previous scenario (i.e. on your chronicle sheet).

You have the option to do either, whichever method benefits you more.

For example, on a couple of scenarios, I've had the option to buy Cure Moderate Wounds potions as part of my reward. Until then, I had thought I could not buy CMW potions until it showed up on my chronicle sheet, but that's not the case? I could buy them at anytime, as long as I had the fame for it?

Yup. And if you didn't have the fame for them before they showed up on a chronicle sheet something went reaaaaaly wrong.

I have the guide to organized play.

There isn't a separate faction list for magic items in there though, just the list of what cost of magic items you can buy via fame.

So does this mean if I have 45 fame, which allows me to purchase magic items up to 41,000 gp, then I can crack open the Core book and buy a Belt of Physical Might +4 (which costs 40,000gp) at any time?

Any time you have the cash, a DM is present, and your character is standing in a settlement large enough to have a pathfinder representative. It can be at the start, end, or sometimes during the adventure, provided you're not say, in the middle of the mawangi expanse.

Or just when I finish a session and a GM can sign off on it it?

Or is there some other Faction list of Magic Items that I am only allowed to buy magic items off of? If so, I can't find this specific list.

Its the same list. So if your fame is 45 the list is every single pfs legal magic item 41,000 gold peices and down including your belt of physical might.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Considering you can cut out someone's tongue for a faction mission, routinely kill sentient beings that are defending their homes from armed intruders, commit assault if not murder in the process of stealing things from their rightful owners i think a few incidents of "he accidentally walked nose first into a door" can get a pass.

You could also end up at a table with none of the above and your +5 is nearly priceless.

If the mission is skill based and you have a +5 you're pretty likely to fail anyway. Scenario authors also seem to like to throw in multiple checks , either not understanding what that does to your odds of success or while holding out buckets for the tears of the players.

I suspect the latter...

Fame purchase and faction purpose are the same thing by different names.

Yes, you're locked into either always available, fame, or chronicle sheet.

Other always available things include mundane gear, alchemical items, and animals size large and smaller.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Certainly didn't mean any personal insult there, by the way. But that reductive outlook is pretty much the opposite of what I enjoy about the game. (Character first, mechanics second for me) It's all good though.

Om nom nom.

Now this i take exception to.

There is nothing about min maxing that deprives your character of character. You do not get more mechanics by having less personality nor do you get more personality by being worse mechanically. Personality is somethin YOU put into the character either separately or in harmony with the stats you choose. Hitting that harmony is just as easy with a bad stat as a good one.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Artanthos, that appears to be a 25 point build.

Sorry: as stated, it is for a character I am currently submitting for a game. It was built to that games specifications.

The link I just added for a high level character is a 20pt build.

Here's the difference for when you're playing PFS

Your fighter has both a high int and a non dumped cha. Thats harder to do on 20 points.

There's no guarantee that that fighter would be the party face. A bard, channeling cleric, PFS Sorcerer with half a brain (ie, one that took a trait to get diplomacy as a class skill), or Paladin could be seated at the same table and render the +5, that you've given up a lot for, largely meaningless.

Artanthos, that appears to be a 25 point build.

WIS for Perception & Sense Motive, CON for the legendary halfling toughness, and general survivablitiy. Acrobatics, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand for his main Skill set, all related to his circus act "Day Job". Definitely a "well-rounded" character, despite 2 stats at 10, and a primary stat of 18. STR was actually bumped, not dumped up to 10, and the CHA is a 10 with a +2 racial mod. I probably would have bumped CHA instead of WIS, if it wasn't already at 12.

Now lets optimize your character a bit more. Drop your charisma down to nine for 4 points , put the 4 points into intelligence, put the extra ranks into Diplomacy (and other social skills if you need them) and you have an objectively better character after a few levels.

Doyle: Druid Level 10: S7 D14 C14 I14 W19 Cha7

He's a faux Rogue so i needed int for the skill points , dex for stealth and disable device, and a high wisdom for spells and the perception score. I don't think he's ever gone unconscious, but there have been times when that 14 con was the only thing keeping him up. Strength is kind of irrelevant when you have saddlebags and charisma was only needed for levels 1-2.

Corvus Cailean: Tengu Inquisitor Level 5: STR: 14 DEX: 17 CON: 12 INT: 7 WIS: 16 CHA: 7

Archery build for Str/Dex. Since, for some odd reason, Calden Cailean doesn't grant the liberation inquisition, i went with the conversion inquisition. It replaces charisma with wisdom for diplomacy bluff and intimidate... which pretty much replaces charisma for everything. It also helps his schtick as the old disheveled drunk that dispenses oddly salient advice.

Shamus Woodgear: Gnome cleric of the lantern king level 3. Dual Channeler heading for undead control. STR: 5 DEX: 12 CON: 16 INT: 10 WIS: 16 CHA: 17

Since he's based around channels he needs Cha, so he has it. The trickery domain gives him some really nice skills that go with it too.

Old thread...

Is there an updated page where the PFS allowed deities are conveniently listed?

Looking thru the list of allowed PFS resources, there are a lot of books with "all the deities listed on pages..." listings. I haven't found where it actually listed any approved deity names.

pssst... have you ever considered becoming a duck?

Link here

BNW,

Yes, you can say what you like, but if you're being an a+$%%$#$, I also have the right to point out you're being an a!~%+~&&. If you don't want to be called an a#$@#!@!, you know what the simplest way to do that is? Don't say things that make you sound like an a%*%&~~%.

Because people don't think of THEMSELVES as crumpets. Being a crumpet is something only other people do. Since they (in their own minds) are not a crumpet and you are yelling at them as if they were, that makes you the crumpet.

Why are you trying to censor my free speech, instead?

because you're a crumpet. See how you disagree with me? :_

20 point human optimized 14 14 14 12 12 11

Optimized for WHAT? Thats the problem.

Add my pawprint to the petition.

There's no rules for having someone else cast a self only spell on you against your will, but the DM has more than enough argument to say it doesn't work at all or that it allows a save.

I understand that if a rogue who has the talent (bleeding attack) can add a bleeding affect on a victim equal to the number of d6 they use for their sneak attack. For instance a 4d6 sneak attack gives 4 bleed to victim. My question is if the rogue hits the same victim with several sneak attacks does each one add a bleed affect or in the book does this fall under stacking of bleeding and not it's not allowed, because I would think each sneak attack would add bleeding since its a seperate wound or am I wrong?

1) Thats a rules question not a PFS question so brace for impact capin and be ready to move forums.

2) A creature that is taking bleed damage takes the listed amount of damage at the beginning of its turn. Bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or through the application of any spell that cures hit point damage (even if the bleed is ability damage). Some bleed effects cause ability damage or even ability drain.[i] Bleed effects do not stack with each other unless they deal different kinds of damage

. When two or more bleed effects deal the same kind of damage, take the worse effect. In this case, ability drain is worse than ability damage.

Both of your bleeds are dealing hit point damage, so they don't stack.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

At the end of the scenario you turn over everything you find to the pathfinder society, and the pathfinder hands you a check based on what you found, not what you have left.

Thunderstones? toss them.
Cure moderate wounds potions? Have a chugging contest.

The system was designed by a gnome, who went bleeched a week later. Don't try to figure it out...

If you're getting the spring attack tree anywho it might be worth it. On its own its.. meh. I've had it as a player and for a character, and even TRYING to surround him with mooks so he could use the feat, other players would pick things off on his turn to reduce its usability.

It's a bit out of character... if you recall the very reason for the existence of the Shadow Lodge, was the overall callousness of the Society for the fate of it's members.

What, you think the president signed your physical fitness certificate too? :)

Grats!

Different strokes for different folks I guess, but this kind of stuff makes me want to gnaw my own face off in despair.

Applies BBQ sauce to the badgers face

Before eating your lower jaw could you tell me why?

You should optimize. You don't need it 90% of the time, but that other 10% can be a real doozey- Especially for your first character when you don't have backups.

This does NOT mean you should hyper-specialize. They're not the same thing and for PFS they're borderline mutually exclusive. As a pathfinder agent you're tossed into an enormous variety of situations with whatever ragtag bunch of adventurers Drendle Drang could wrest from bed at 4 o clock in the morning- optimizing means being able to do what you set out to do and to it well. Whatever your character build is you're setting out to be a pathfinder agent as a member of a team of agents.

Point 1: This Will, and i mean WILL involve combat.

You might, at some point in your career, talk your way through a scenario. Doing it every single time borders on the impossible. Expect to spend about 80% of a game in combat and thats 99% of where its important to be good. You had better be good at something in combat.

Combat is something that everyone contributes directly and proportionately to*. If you have two locksmiths one becomes largely superfluous: you don't pick the locks in half the time, add your rolls together or anything-you're probably just a +2 aid another bonus. Conversely If you have two zweinheinder wielding fighters of death with 20 strengths they carve through the scenario ~ twice as fast as one zweinheinder wielding fighters of death with 20 strength.

It should be pretty high on the priority list.

Point 2: Versatility is its own power.

The party needs to try to cover the bases: getting things dead (directly or indirectly), Staying alive, and overcoming different sorts of obstacles/accomplishing tasks. If the party needs to climb the cliff, convince the monk to help them, and then defeat the yeti then a character who can climb the cliff and defeat the yeti with equal aplomb is better than one who can only defeat the yeti.

You need to strike a balance between being a one trick pony and being so well rounded that you can't do anything well, or that you simply overlap with every member of your party.

Point 3:Some ways of overcoming obstacles are just better than others.

Keeping a scroll or two of spider climb on hand hands down beats skill focus: climb. Take the most efficient option and remember you're in a high magic setting. Not getting a wand of cure light wounds and a few potions is like going hiking without a first aid kit and a knife (and then wrestling a bear when you get to the top)

*That rule is dead. Muahahahah!

1 person marked this as a favorite.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

my attempt at "doing the math" - again, just an opinion): If even one in 10 adventures requires a second PC to make a CHA skill check (and there are 7 CHA skills), then the "Snow White" example brakes down.

to

If you have a face and you're not interacting with the DM thats your own fault. If you have a face in the party, you're not the face of the party, and you want to yak with the mission important PCs thats just like volunteering disarm a trap with your butcheeks. (aka the barbarian way!)

1 in 10 would be generous... to your side. It still makes my point. Remember, hurts the least is NOT "doesn't hurt at all". If you have a 10% greater chance of success for something you need to to 10% of the time you have something that matters 1% of the time. That's about the least amount of harm possible- which is what min maxing is all about. Min maxing is an important part of optimization.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

nosig wrote:

"First the odds aren't opinion they're just math" huh? what odds? did I miss part of your statement qouting odds? I'll go back and re-read it after this...

a 10% failure rate whenever he gives a command to his companion.

Omg NOOOOoooOOOOOoooo a possibility of failure for ...2 levels, that you can work around by setting the animal to defend you out of combat so that he attacks something at least.

Quote:

I do not consider (again, just my opinion) a 10% failure rate to be as good as a 0% failure rate, do you?

I consider them very close, particularly as

1) it only lasts a few levels.
2) You only need it to get them to attack specific targets (because of the defend work around)
3) in a d20 based system 10% is the second smallest chance of failure you can have.

Quote:

. Until he gets at least 2 more ranks (levels), he has to roll a 13 to teach his companion the tricks Attack, Defend, Guard, or Track...

At first level the critter comes fully trained as per the pfs faq. He should have Attack, Attack, Defend, flank, Down, and Seek (because seek is the "go over there" trick)- no handle animal check is required.

At second level you learn another trick off the bonus feat which..These bonus tricks don't require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don't count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The druid selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can't be changed.

At third level you'll have enough ranks handle animal to train him via take 10 for every trick but detect and entertain.

Now, speaking of strawmen, its not that this is as good as a druid with an 18 charisma, its just that the difference is mathematically smaller (10% for 1 level,5% for 1 level,none) than it would be for anything other stat.

"First the odds aren't opinion they're just math" huh? what odds? did I miss part of your statement qouting odds? I'll go back and re-read it after this...

AHem... the parts where

-why a druid doesn't need cha to handle animal
-why average party charisma is meaningless. Snow white has the same +Diplomacy with seven dwarves as with seven bards.
-that if you insist on needing a wide variety of social skills, +int will make most builds better at it than +charisma

I believe I stated as much for CON, though I did point out that a large number of PCs I have seen have 10 CONs (I would say the majority of non-frontline fighter types I have seen have CONs of 10 or maybe 12).

Yeah that's not a dump. You don't see a lot of Lucky 7 cons, or elves with a con score of 5 because it will cost you something.

Please support this statement:"Charisma is the stat dump that hurts the most people the least: thats why its so common, not because of some misconception about its usefulness." I do not find it to be true.

A fighter archer or any non charisma based build has little chance of 1) Being the one to have to make the diplomacy/bluff check in the first place or 2) succeeding based on raw charisma if they do have to make the check. The difference between a 7 charisma fighter and a 12 charisma fighter making a dc 20 check isn't much, but for making a dc 25 check its exactly the same.

Try to show me what charisma does for a typical fighter build. Give me a 20 point buy character.

Also, if you make it into a +1 weapon, it no longer counts as your one mw transformation.

BNW - everything you say is true, and everything has a counter arguement. It's all opinion, subject to Judges calls and table veriation. You say: "Its not an assumption its a conclusion." and I say, it's a faulty conclusion then. Perhaps gained from a limited test sample?

First the odds aren't opinion they're just math. Secondly no, you can't pull an accusation of a limited sample size when you yourself are running into a large number of people who've reached the exact same conclusion.

Secondly reversing the word play but winding up with something that is completely false doesn't make your point. many characters Can dump cha with minimal side effects. The same can go for strength, but its absolutely false for wisdom and especially con. Charisma is the stat dump that hurts the most people the least: thats why its so common, not because of some misconception about its usefulness.

sigh... and anytime the party needs a little help talking, or your PC has to do something CHA based, you need to turn to the "Party Face". DO you make sure to have one at every table? Kind of like making sure to have someone with Disable Device?

Yup

My druid finds traps, disarms traps, knows the local fauna and flora, tracks, gets people through the wilderness, knows the denizens of the dungeon, speaks 8 languages, and has willingly volunteered to be lowered into swamps, mud puddles, cesspools, pits, and the still warm innards of a number of creatures because someone thought that a part of it would make excellent scrimshaw on their mantel, can buff the party and tags along with the living incarnation of why dinosaurs went extinct from their own awesomeness.

Is it really too much to ask if he has someone go talk to girls for him because he's from a communist dys/utopia and isn't sure how to go about it without filling out form 49574-B: permission to begin courtship?

Low INT? this is so overdone, I expect to see at least one Forest Gump at most tables.

He's gump, he's gump, whats in his head...

He's gump, he's gump, he slays undead....

Gather information - everyone aids the check.

If the DM lets you. The difference of getting a 10 or a 12 aren't that big, much less the chance of your lack of a +2 being crucial.

Clerics are not often the "Party Face" (short on skill points) and yet need CHA (Channel anyone?)

They get 2 skill points per level. Diplomacy is a class skill for them, and its the second most used skill. If you're a channeling cleric you probably should be a face, if you're not you can drop it like a rock.

Druids handle animal.

Dwarven druid with a 5 charisma has 1 Rank +3 class -3 Cha +4 Link +2 training harness= needs a 3 at first level to get the critter attacking.

"So kid, whatcha doin' here?" Roll your bluff... wait, what do you mean you're swinging on a city guard?!

If you're not a face you're not making the check anyway.

CHA is as important as any other stat.

Nope. Skills aren't the only thing in the system. its not attached to a save.

I've seen a melee PC with a 7 strength (maybe it was a 5?). Halfling Dawnflower Dervish. A real terror in melee (Bonus to hit & damage is DEX based). He planned to get Muleback cords as his first magic item (I think).

I have similar plans for a kitsune ninja. But note that said halfling is out the shoulder slot that normally goes to the ever important cloak of resistance.

It is rather that many people assume that CHA is the logical dump stat - and so you end up with parties of adventurers where the AVERAGE CHA at the table is 7. Out of 6 PCs.

Its not an assumption its a conclusion.

Average con score of 7= dead party. If your average is an 8 but one person is sporting an 18 (Hi ho, hi ho, its off to work we go...) you do just as well as a party with an average of 14.

"And wisdom.... if you're not a perception monkey, or a ranger you not only don't need it, you don't need ANY Of it. "

Will saves. they will get you and/or the party killed.

"And Dexterity.... if...

Getting hit will get you killed

Fort saves and running out of HP will get you killed.

Int looses skill points, but yes if you're dumping it dump it hard. The nagaji paladin with an int of 5 has the same skill points as the Gnome pally with an int of 9 (or the animal companion with an int of 2...)

Just because you can say it doesn't make it so. These have already been demonstrated above.

Exactly how did they get the measurement from the victorian age to compare it to, and where can I get my company a staff necromancer?

why the comment "(especially CHA)"?

Everyone needs enough strength to carry their armor and bag of holding.

very few people like taking a penalty to ac from dex

Everybody needs con at some point

Dumping int costs skill points (but once you drop to 9 on a 2 point per level class you may as well go for broke)

Wisdom controls will saves, which are a lot of SODs

And charisma.... if you're not a party face you only don't need it, you don't need ANY Of it. The difference between making a diplomacy check with a 10 charisma and a 7 is pretty negligable, especially when you factor in the odds of you having to be the one to make the check.

Before is better than at the con. At the con people are setting up, getting hotel rooms, starting games getting pizza... registering a character in that hustle and bustle is doable, but not optimal.

Up on the left hand corner of the screen it says pathfinder society. Click there. At the bottom of the first paragraph it says "click here to join the pathfinder society" Click there and sign in with your paizo account. (the same thing you use to sign onto the message boards, its just double checking who you are because you're going into a sensitive area)

Your character (and i highly reccommend you make your own) is 20 point buy, standard races + tengu aasimar, tiefling. You can check the guide to organized play for an almost full list of rules. Folks here would be happy to help you make a character.

The ipad is good but please please please make a print out in case your ipad runs out of power, gets a drink spilled on it, "goes off exploring on its own"

I can't overrecommend making your first few games the first steps games. They provide a good ic and ooc intro into the pathfinder society.

Drat, deal fell through. Damn you reaper and your slow shipping of bones! :)

Willing to trade painting services for a kitsune boon so I can make my Ninja in a pimp hat, or any race boon really since i can trade it to someone for the kitsune.

hmmmm... 2 extra points of strength for carrying capacity is making that 5 strength kitsune look a lot more viable...